ONE hundred shale gas ­production sites across the country covering a combined area equivalent to Manchester’s Trafford Centre would be enough to halve the UK’s ­dependence on imports.

This is ­according to the head of a London-listed company set to explore for the controversial energy source.

Andrew Austin, chief executive of IGas Energy, already the UK’s largest onshore oil and gas operator, is preparing to drill an appraisal well for gas, including shale gas, in the fourth quarter of this year. His company holds licences for up to six such wells in the North-west’s Bowland shale.

Shale gas is a type of natural gas trapped in sedimentary rock that can be extracted by a process known as fracking.

In the US it has caused an energy revolution by boosting supplies and reducing prices.

However, rival UK explorer Cuadrilla has seen its plans to drill for shale gas in Sussex halted by protests.

Austin said: “If the industry is allowed to grow, it could make material difference to energy pricing. Otherwise, we will be at the mercy of imports and that could lead to high bills and a higher carbon footprint than locally produced gas.”

He believes shale gas has the potential to create a new British industry on the scale of the North Sea developments. Discoveries could turn the North-west, ­potentially rich in shale gas, into the next Aberdeen, with a jobs boom and a buoyant ­housing market.

Shale gas has proved ­controversial due to the fracking process.

This involves pumping a mix of water, sand and one or more chemicals down a borehole at high pressure to create tiny fractures in the shale rock deep underground.

If the industry is allowed to grow, it could make material difference to energy pricing. Otherwise, we will be at the mercy of imports and that could lead to high bills and a higher carbon footprint than locally produced gas.

Andrew Austin, chief executive of IGas Energy

Gas trapped in the shale can then flow through these ­fractures into the wellbore and back up to the surface.

The process has been used in the UK for 30 years to help extract conventional hydro­carbons from 200 wells. ­However, anti-fracking campaigners say it could cont­aminate groundwater with chemicals or gas.

In 2011, ­exploratory drilling by Cuadrilla off the coast of Blackpool caused tremors.

The industry believes that once communities see shale gas sites in operation, opposition will diminish.

Austin said: “It is the fear of the unknown.

“The industry is responsible for getting it right, from explaining the process to the communities in which it proposes to ­operate, all the way down to how its workers behave.”